[ExI] Do We Live in a Simulation? Chances Are about 50–50

[William Flynn Wallace]

Consciousness is like time:  everyone knows what it is but cannot define
it.   bill w

On Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 6:36 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> I remember when this was a favorite topic of the list!
>
> "Gauging whether or not we dwell inside someone else’s computer may come
> down to advanced AI research—or measurements at the frontiers of cosmology"
>
> "...Ever since Nick Bostrom of the University of Oxford wrote a seminal
> paper about the simulation argument in 2003
> <https://academic.oup.com/pq/article-abstract/53/211/243/1610975>,
> philosophers, physicists, technologists and, yes, comedians have been
> grappling with the idea of our reality being a simulacrum. Some have tried
> to identify ways in which we can discern if we are simulated beings. Others
> have attempted to calculate the chance of us being virtual entities. Now a
> new analysis shows that the odds that we are living in base reality—meaning
> an existence that is not simulated—are pretty much even. But the study also
> demonstrates that if humans were to ever develop the ability to simulate
> conscious beings, the chances would overwhelmingly tilt in favor of us,
> too, being virtual denizens inside someone else’s computer. (A caveat to
> that conclusion is that there is little agreement about what the term
> “consciousness” means, let alone how one might go about simulating it.)
>
> In 2003 Bostrom imagined a technologically adept civilization that
> possesses immense computing power and needs a fraction of that power to
> simulate new realities with conscious beings in them. Given this scenario,
> his simulation argument showed that at least one proposition in the
> following trilemma must be true: First, humans almost always go extinct
> before reaching the simulation-savvy stage. Second, even if humans make it
> to that stage, they are unlikely to be interested in simulating their own
> ancestral past. And third, the probability that we are living in a
> simulation is close to one."
>
> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-chances-are-about-50-50/
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